Mount McKinley, Western Rim and. Cassin Route of South Face. Our group of eight divided evenly to climb these two routes. My brother Alan, Paul (Tut) Braithwaite and Paul Moores and I climbed the Cassin route while Don Whillans, Gordon (Binke) Blakie, John Howard and the Californian Bob Schneider did the Western Rim. Both teams reached the summit alpine-style on June 26 only 12 hours apart. Our foursome set off on the morning of June 21 and went to the Cassin Icefield at about 14,500 feet. The next day we camped at 16,000 feet and were stormbound for 24 hours. On June 24 we climbed to 17,300 feet, where the route regains the final ridge leading to the summit. Twelve hours of bad weather meant that we started for the summit on the evening of June 25, climbed through the night to reach the top at 5:30 A.M. and descended 8000 feet before eating and sleeping. Unfortunately the descent down the West Buttress was crawling with people and garbage.

Adrian Burgess, Alpine Climbing Group

NOTE: All dates in this section refer to 1976 unless otherwise stated.